Jonathan Barnes - The Domino Men

“It was a present,” I said defensively. Then, remembering the gravity of the situation: “I think you’d better come inside.”

“Not tonight. The enemy is very close. We’ll meet again soon, Until then — tread carefully.”

Before I could stop her, she was gone, trotting spryly into the dark. I peered out at the street and could see no sign of those “watchers” she’d spoken about. But I was careful to double-lock the door all the same before I went back into the sitting room, where Abbey, still aflutter from our kiss, was polishing off another slice of cake.

“I was thinking,” she said, “how about we go to the cinema tomorrow? I’m not sure what’s on-” She saw my face. “What’s happened? Who was that?”

“A ghost from the past,” I said, before, in a sudden surge of pessimism, adding: “Or the shape of things to come.”

Somehow another night had passed, another cheerless journey had been endured with Barnaby and I had come again to the Directorate, back to that glass bubble and its impossible occupant.

“You look tired, Henry Lamb. I do hope that landlady of yours isn’t keeping you up nights.”

“I beg your pardon?” I asked, starchily affronted that this half-naked ghoul should even know of Abbey’s existence, let alone be talking about her in such a way.

Dedlock laughed and a thin trail of bubbles left his mouth, popping as they reached the surface. “An old man’s joke,” he said, as a second stream drifted after the first. “God knows we need something to laugh about now.” In his arthritic doggy paddle, he swam close to the pane and grimaced. “How’s your granddad?”

I felt a trickle of sweat creep down my back. “No change. No change at all.”

Jasper spoke up, all business. “There is still a sliver of hope. It is just possible that your grandfather left us a clue. We need to see his home.”

“You want to go to my granddad’s house?”

“It’s what he would have wanted,” Dedlock said. “Trust me, it’s really important that you give us your full cooperation.”

I thought for a moment. “There is a condition.”

A spasm of irritation disrupted Dedlock’s face. “What?”

“I want you to tell me exactly what it was that Granddad did for you.”

“Ignorance is a virtue in our business. Relish it. Believe me, you would not wish to know the truth.”

“You owe me an explanation.”

The old man banged the side of his tank, fury bulging in his ancient eyes. “Just do your duty! Time is running out.”

Barnaby drove Jasper and me to 17 Temple Drive, where my grandfather had lived out a life far richer and more strange than I could ever have guessed.

On the journey, I made myself unpopular by insisting we pull over at a corner shop to buy a couple of tins of cat food. I’d been feeling profoundly guilty about the old man’s pet, terrified that we would arrive to find the poor animal with its ribcage poking through its fur, mewling at me in piteous accusation.

At last, Barnaby pulled up outside the old bastard’s house. “Doesn’t look like much,” he said. “Not for him.”

“You knew him?” I asked.

Barnaby summoned up a look of astonishingly undiluted bellicosity. “Thought you had a job to do.”

We stepped out of the car, slammed the doors, and Barnaby sped into the distance.

Once he was gone, Jasper looked up at the house and wrinkled his nose. “After you.”

I fumbled with the key, opened the door and walked inside. Jasper, embarrassed, hung back, waiting by the threshold.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“You need to invite me in.”

“What?”

Jasper looked at his feet. “You need to invite me in.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your grandfather was prudent. There are snares here, too. Psychic traps and etheric burglar alarms. He’s made sure I can’t enter without permission.”

I grinned. “Like a vampire?”

“Just ask me in, Henry.”

“Very well.” I shrugged. “Come in.”

Jasper stepped inside, looking agitatedly around him as though he expected at any moment to be perforated by a booby trap or tumble through a trapdoor. “We don’t want to linger. They’ll be watching.”

Leaving him to his melodramatics and struggling against the memories stirred by the smell of burnt sausages, I began searching for the cat, scouring kitchen, bathroom and lounge.

“Is there a safe?” Jasper asked.

“Granddad hasn’t got a safe,” I said.

“He’d have disguised it. It wouldn’t necessarily look like a safe. Probably more like a sheet of metal.”

For a second, I wavered. Then I made my decision. “You’d better come upstairs.”

The bedroom was just as before, mummified and changeless — the coffee-stained newspaper, the clock stopped at 12:14, the photograph of me as a child. I expected Jasper to make some quip at the sight of it, some nugget of sarcasm about Worse Things Happen at Sea , but he was fizzing with nerves, glancing feverishly into shadows, jumping like a startled squirrel at the slightest sound.

I moved the photograph aside to reveal the sheet of metal underneath. “This what we’re looking for?”

Jasper leaned close, peering at the keyhole and the metal pincers which ran around the circumference of the hole. “DNA lock,” he murmured. “Give me your hand.”

“What?” I said. “What are you going to do with me?”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re not here for your good looks and your six-pack, Henry. Just give me your hand.” Jasper grabbed my left hand. “I need to borrow your thumb for a minute.”

“Oh,” I said doubtfully.

“Press it against the hole. Make sure you draw blood.”

“What? Why do you want me to do that?”

“Like I said — DNA lock. Knowing him, it’s bound to be a family thing.”

I protested that I didn’t understand what he was talking about.

“Henry, please. Just trust me.”

“Are you sure?”

“For God’s sake, we’re running out of time.”

Warily, feeling rather as though I’d been bullied into it, I pressed my thumb hard against the hole. The pincers instantly drew blood and I yelped in shock. When I took my thumb away, the metal was stained with red.

With a soft click, the metal sheet slid open.

“See?” Jasper said.

Just as this happened, something furry brushed against my legs. I looked down. “Hello,” I said, and the cat purred happily back. To my relief, he looked every bit as plump as before. “I’ve got some food for you.”

“Forget the cat,” Jasper snapped. “What’s in the safe?”

There was a small compartment built into the wall, entirely empty except for a hardbacked notebook. I pulled it out and saw that someone had pasted a white sticker to the cover, on which was written:

For Henry

So nakedly covetous was the look in Jasper’s eyes that I thought he was about to snatch it away from me, like a jealous schoolgirl grabbing at a classmate’s love letter.

“What does it say?” he asked. “Quick — what does it say?”

Flipping it open, I saw that the book was filled with familiar handwriting, the pen pressed down so hard upon the paper that every leaf of it was ridged with the outline of letters.

The first page read:

Dear Henry,

If you are reading this, then I have met with some disaster, either by my own folly or at the hand of the enemy. I imagine that you must by now have been inducted into the Directorate and that you will have guessed that there was considerably more to my life — and to yours — than I ever let you know. For this my sincere apologies.

Both the Directorate and the House of Windsor will be looking for a woman named Estella. The secret of her location has kept the war in stalemate for years.